Third flight in three weeks diverted because of damaged window

[mfcorey1]

Last edited Mon May 7, 2018, 08:01 PM - Edit history (1)

(CNN) - For the third time in three weeks, a major commercial airline flight was diverted mid-air because of a damaged window.

The latest incident happened Sunday, when a JetBlue flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Tampa, Florida, was diverted because of damage to the plane's windscreen.

The airline said the flight was diverted to Fort Lauderdale out of "an abundance of caution following a report of damage to one of the outer layers of the cockpit windscreen." The plane landed safely and the passengers were accommodated on another aircraft, JetBlue said.

That incident comes about three weeks after a fatal Southwest Airlines flight in which a jet engine failed midair and debris knocked out a cabin window.

Jennifer Riordan, a philanthropist and Wells Fargo executive in New Mexico, was partially sucked out of the plane as other passengers struggled to pull her back into her seat. She was later pronounced dead from blunt impact trauma, a spokesman for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health said.

Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board who looked into the failure said that one of the engine's 24 fan blades was missing.

Despite the mid-air engine failure, Captain Tammie Jo Shults was able to safely pilot the flight in an emergency landing in Philadelphia.

On May 2, a Southwest Airlines flight from Chicago to Newark, New Jersey, made an unplanned landing after a window cracked.

https://www.news4jax.com/news/national/third-flight-in-three-weeks-diverted-because-of-damaged-window

[Blue_Tires]

1. Lazy journalism...

That first Southwest flight didn't divert because of a "damaged window", they diverted because of an uncontained catastrophic failure of the #1 Engine...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. And there was BA Flight 5390,

in which the captain got sucked out of a cockpit windscreen and was saved by a crew member who hung onto his legs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_5390 That was way back in 1990 and I haven't heard of an incident like these since, so three in a short period of time seems odd.

[RockCreek]

3. How many just weren't reported previously?

1996 Boston to Seattle Northwest flight. Cockpit outer window cracked (they said it was a bird...who knows). Plane depressurized somewhat to help to equilibrate and returned to Logan for an emergency landing. No oxygen masks needed. It did not make the news. Terrifying when it happened - a loud bang, rapid loss of altitude, and beeps going off. Flight attendants running to cockpit. Then an announcement after a few minutes. About 15 or 20 very long minutes and an emergency landing.